How To Video Call on Facebook

I am very thrilled when Facebook announced their new feature called “Video Calling” last July 7th. Since Microsoft bought Skype, and Facebook partnered with Microsoft, they grabbed the opportunity by using Skype’s technology to integrate Video Calls inside Facebook. The hassle of changing one service to another is now minimized.

I am grateful to be one of few who was able to test it live with a friend of mine since Facebook disabled the service for the moment maybe because to enhance it further. But you can wait until it would be an official release.

I received a download for a Facebook Video Calling plug-in. You cannot see it now as they have disabled it for the moment. But it will soon be available to all with no hassle on your part.

Installed the plugin

After installation, you will now see a Video Call icon on your chats

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post the plugin application (one-time setup) here so I decided not to post it, but I’m sure you can find it elsewhere.

Here’s a sneak view of the Video Call I made with my friend:

Pros:

Less hassle if you don’t want to transfer from one service to another.

Call straight from Facebook with your confirmed friends.

Cool.

Cons:

Pixellated.

Echo is annoying.

You’ll be available for video calling with all your friends when you’re online. But you can always cancel calls if you want.

You can really tell the difference when you use Skype for video calls, because Skype uses a P2P technology and uses more bandwidth. Facebook Video Call seems to have used a direct connection (client-server-client) type, maybe that’s why it was pixellated; to use less bandwidth but a stress on their servers.

Well, that was a good experience though. I hope the next version of their new feature would be better.

Marc Roger Escabas is a shy person, Musician for God, Gamer, Blogger, Chatter and Chubby, he is down to earth though. He doesn't like to go to places where it is too elegant and crowded for him. But in general, he's easy to get along with.

Great info. Video chat is so much fun, I can’t wait to try this out. I think that Facebook is going to hold it’s own against this Google + business, I never even heard of it until recently. Ha ha so out of the loop.